The Samsung 2263DX is an interesting concept! The rather normal 22″ LCD monitor is tagged along by an additional 7″ LCD monitor that has a decent pixel format of 800 x 480. You can use the 7″ LCD for anything you’d like such as email notification, video conferencing, instant messaging, etc. The 7″ can be located on the left, right or top and is connected via a UbiSync USB connection. Kudos to Samsung for adding a little something extra. Will the additional display improve productivity? We’ll see. Maybe it might be used for improved gameplay instead! For instance, if game developers used the extra screen for GPS, status information for engine, robot, self, etc., that might actually improve gameplay. Of course, you’d want to improve the main monitor first since it’s really not high-performance.

BenQ claims its V2400W is the world’s slimmest 24″ LCD monitor and says that it is 21% thinner at just 2.44″ than any other. It is about time. I’ve purchased a 24″ LCD monitor before and I must say I was a little surprised to see how porky it was. I’m referring to LG’s L246WP-BN. How much exactly is 21% thinner? Well, since most specifications are ‘with base stand’ I can’t really figure out how thick these guys are. My best guess is around 3″. So 21% thinner would be around 0.62″. 0.62″? I guess that’s significant. Make it just 1″ thick and I’ll get a little more excited. There are 42″ LCD TVs getting close to that thickness or should I say thinness…

The 4000:1 dynamic contrast ratio is very good. The 2ms response time is super fast. The brightness at 250 cd/m2? Hmm, not too bright. 160/160 viewing angles?!? Now this is terrible. To trim costs and to get a better price to you (hopefully), BenQ is using a TN+Film LCD technology. This is fine if you’re a gamer or just a regular monitor user that looks at the LCD dead-on, but if you want color and brightness to be rock solid at the sides, I’d look elsewhere. There will be considerable color shift if you go off-axis. And speaking of off-axis, the stand is to the left and then the base, to compensate, is longer on the right. I’d rather have them in the middle and the buttons too.

Samsung’s LN-T4081F uses a LED backlight instead of the typical CCFL backlight. Now simply using LED instead of CCFL doesn’t do much in terms of performance. So Samsung developed a technology called LED Motion Plus and LED SmartLighting. LED Motion Plus progressively scans (from line 1 to line 1080) at very high frequencies resulting in elimination of motion blur. Motion blur is something that a lot of LCD TVs have problems with. Another way to reduce or eliminate motion blur is to use 120Hz frequencies. The LN-T4081F doesn’t use 120Hz but instead uses a LED backlight and LED Motion Plus. The LED SmartLighting feature enhances contrast ratio by controlling the brightness of areas of the picture based on how dark or bright they are, making dark colors darker and bright areas brighter. That’s how Samsung’s LN-T4081F gets a contrast ratio of 500,00:1! LED backlighting is the future but it’s going to cost you with a MSRP of $2499.99 for the LN-T4081F. A 42″ LCD TV with almost all of the features but with the typical CCFL backlight will cost you just 50% of that.

For a bank, ING Direct is “thinking different”. The largest direct bank in the US has developed a Cafe concept. The Cafe concept allows customers to conduct banking transactions, meet friends and drink a cup of coffee surrounded by LCDs and plasma displays. ING Direct is working with Rise Vision to install digital signage solutions at its new Cafe concept in Chicago. Rise Vision provides software, the systems andÂ Internet content management for the Chicago Cafe. The Chicago Cafe feature a video wall of seven LCDs that are used for informing and advertising to potentialÂ customers who walks by (maybe even drives by). Using Matrox QID cards, the video wall can be configured to show all the same content or content that is synchronized across the seven LCD displays. Inside the Chicago Cafe, plasma displays are mounted and are connected to interactive LCDs where customers can interact with tutorials on products and services provided by ING Direct.

Folks that enjoy the Starbucks experience might enjoy ING Direct’s Cafes. One reviewer on Yelp stated the food is better than Starbucks. The Internet connections are free, which is quite a bit something more than what Starbucks offers. I am an AT&T U-verse subscriber so hopefully I will be able to enjoy free WiFi at Starbucks soon, or can I already? I hope ING Direct builds out its Cafe concept in the SF Bay Area soon so I can bank, drink coffee, eat decent food, meet friends, and surf.

Seattle Times: Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology manufactures polysilicon for use in solar cells. There are high hopes all over the world for solar energy to heat water and generate electricity. China has high hopes too. Eager to supply the growing demand of polysilicon, 20 Chinese companies are poised to manufacture 80,000 to 100,000 tons of polysilicon, which is significantly more than the 40,000 tons manufactured in the entire world today.

One of those companies is Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology, which is located in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River. Luoyang Zhonggui is slated to manufacture 3000 tons of polysilicon this year (compared to just 300 tons in 2007) catapulting to the top in China and is a key supplier to Suntech Power Holdings. Suntech Power Holdings was founded by Shi Zhengrong, who is the richest person in China. To build a polysilicon plant and begin manufacturing, it typically takes two years; Chinese companies are attempting to do it in just one year. Prices have sky-rocketed too from just $20/kg to $300/kg in five years.

For nine months, dump trucks from Luoyang’s factory have dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the grounds between the cornfields and the primary-school playground. The bubbling white liquid is silicon tetrachloride, a highly toxic substance. Four tons of silicon tetrachloride liquid waste is generated for every ton of polysilicon manufactured. Silicon tetrachloride breaks down into chlorine and hydrochloric acid. Plants cannot grow and the land becomes unsuitable for people to live in. In the developed world, silicon tetrachloride is recycled and returned to the manufacturing process, but the process requires expensive equipment, enormous energy and time. Silicon tetrachloride must be heated to more than 1800-degrees Fahrenheit to be recycled. In a land where all go to procure cheap components and labor, companies like Luoyang do not install recycling equipment and technology.

According to Pro-EnerTech, a polysilicon research firm based in Shanghai, the Chinese government is overlooking the problem due to the severe shortage of polysilicon. From two years ago, Chinese plants have been stockpiling silicon tetrachloride hoping they will find a way to dispose of it later. Others such as Luoyang Zhonggui are simply dumping them anywhere and saving millions of dollars in the process. The cost of manufacturing a ton of polysilicon with environmental protection technology is about $84,500. By simply dumping poisonous gas into the air and silicon tetrachloride in the ground, the Chinese companies can manufacture a ton at only $21,000 to $56,000 per ton of polysilicon. This is not surprising as Chinese manufacturers have continued to put cost reduction ahead of environmental concerns.

A LCD monitor with dynamic contrast ratio! 2000:1 is pretty good. It’s just a guess but I’m thinking the CCFL-based backlight has either a local dimming or pulsing capability. The CCFLs are the Wide Color Gamut (WCG-CCFL) variety which is becoming more common. With any LCD monitor that sports more than the typical 72% NTSC I would recommend getting a color calibration tool, especially if you are in a profession that requires accurate colors. You never know what CIE coordinates these monitors have. Other than the features already mentioned, the $289 price seems to be good, but in light of this ‘UltraSharp’ not having RCA inputs to use as a video source for a DVD player, a PS2 and others, I would have liked to see this come out at $249 since it’s only semi-UltraSharp.

Update 2008.04.15
At digg, someone states that “Dell is once again releasing a top notch LCD monitor: Dell Ultra Sharp 2009W.” Let’s see if this statement holds true by looking at some specifications of Dell’s new UltraSharp 2009W.

Let’s first look at the cool specs. The 102% NTSC color gamut is great. The 2000:1 dynamic contrast ratio is cool too and will enhance the picture of video. These two features will really enhance the gaming experience for you hardcore gamers out there.

Now on to the not-so-great stuff. The 5ms response time for it to turn on and off might sound like it’s pretty fast, but it’s actually on the slow slide since many are putting Gray-To-Gray (GTG) or Toff-Ton-Toff response times of less than 8ms. Since it is a regular 20″ the pixel format is limited to 1680 x 1050. If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you know that I really don’t like this in-between pixel format. If you’re a real gamer, splurge on a display that has a pixel format of 1920 x 1200 (and make sure you get a powerful GPU to drive it). The last weak point is the awful viewing angle. Don’t think about moving your head up and down when you’re gaming since colors and brightness will shift. The 170/160 viewing angles of the 2009W is subpar and tells me this monitor uses the TN+Film LCD kind.

On March 14, Eastman Kodak Company announced an intellectual property cross-licensing agreement with LG Display (LGD). The royalty bearing license enables LGD to use Kodak technology that improves yields for active matrix OLEDs (AMOLEDs). The agreement also enables LGD to purchase Kodak’s OLED materials for use in manufacturing displays.

According to Andrew Sculley, General Manager and Vice President, Kodakâ€™s Display Business, â€œAMOLED technology offers superior product performance, and ultimately low-cost manufacturing advantages.” Focus on the word ‘ultimately’. It will take quite some time for AMOLED technology to be price competitive to plasma or LCD in the areas of notebook PCs, LCD monitors, and LCD TVs. As a quick comparison, Sony’s 11″ OLED TV currently costs about $2500. For $2500, a top-of-the-line 46″ LCD TV can be bought with all of the bells and whistles (with a little left over to get yourself an affordable Blu-ray player and a couple of movies!). It will take about another 5 years for AMOLED to get to mass manufacturing 20″+ OLED TVs.

In the announcement, Kodak mentions KAGA Electronics of Japan and its plans to introduce a portable 1-Seg TV featuring a 3.0″ color OLED display. The miniscule OLED TV uses Kodakâ€™s Global Mura Compensation AMOLED technology improves overall yields improvement. The KODAK ELITE VISION AMOLED 1-Seg TV was co-developed by Kodak, LGD, KAGA Electronics and Andes Electronics and will be available in Japan by the end of March 2008.

ShanghaiDaily.com: During the FPD China 2008 flat panel display show, LG Display debuted its 12″ black-and-white and 14.3″ color flexible display products. LGD is expected to volume manufacture these flexible displays later in 2008. The flexible displays make use of an ultra-thin steel foil on a plastic substrate that allows them to be flexible.â€¨

â€¨According to the company, LGD is currently in talks with a US-based firm to integrate the 14.3″ color display into an ebook reader. Like the displays in Sony’s ebook reader and Amazon’s Kindle, the flexible displays are easy to read text off of. LGD stated that it has a wide viewing angle, but I’m not sure if you want to read your ebook off axis. Maybe some do, but I don’t read normal books that way and don’t see a reason why I would want to do that with an ebook. Of course, low power consumption is part of the equation since these displays make use of bi-stable technology that consumes no power when the display is not being updated.

On March 12, Royal Philips Electronics NV announced that it had sold 6.7% or 24M shares of LG Display for net proceeds of around E680M. The company now holds just 13.2% stake at LGD, formerly known as LG.Philips LCD (LPL).

It is fitting that LG.Philips LCD changed its name to LG Display. Philips is no longer a meaningful player at LGD.

AU Optronics (AUO) announced on March 11 the worldâ€™s first 24″ LCD panel with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a pixel format of 1920 x 1080 geared for desktop monitor applications. Traditionally, 24″ LCD monitors have had a pixel format of 1920 x 1200 with an aspect ratio of 16:10. AUO calls the new application for its 16:9 1080p LCDs, “MoniTV”. In my opinion, I don’t think there needs to be a new application segment that needs to be defined.

The 24″ 1080p LCD is also very thin at just 14mm compared to a typical thickness of 35mm. AUO also claims that it is significantly lighter compared to the older 24″ designs. This would help them reduce cost on transportation. In addition, AUO claims mura issues have been reduced, light uniformity improved and power consumption reduced by 50%. Power consumption is decreased by reducing the number of CCFLs used in the backlight unit (BLU). Even with the 50% power consumption reduction, the on-screen performance is quite respectable at 300 cd/m2 of brightness, a contrast ratio of 1000:1.

Everyone is talking about carbon emission and the reduction of it. AUO talks about it too. With a typical 50K hour lifetime, a 50% reduction in power consumption saves 2500 watts of power that equals a reduction of 1.6 tons of carbon emissions. I don’t know exactly how that number was calculated, but it seems the new 24″ LCD panel is doing the world a favor.

By Q2’08, AUO will introduce 18.5″, 21.5″, 24″ and 32″ 1080p LCD monitor panels. The 27″ 1080p LCD will be available in Q4’08. The 15″ 16:9 model is already commercialized, but I am not sure it is 1080p.â€¨